Old Black Magic
by phwablet
Summary: Sakura doesn't want to move to Konohagakure. She doesn't want to make new friends. She just wants to drown it all out with her headphones. But when she accidentally wakes up three soul-hungry witches from centuries of sleep, she enlists the help of her foster brother, an incredibly hot upperclassman, and a talking fox. Inspired by Disney's Hocus Pocus. Sakura x Itachi.
1. i am the first

**Spell 001:** _i am the first_

"I refuse to go along with this deal of yours. You may be able to make me go with you, but I'm not going to play along. This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it."

"C'mon, Sakura, can't you think of anyone besides yourself?"

"You're one to talk, dad. I got it from you."

"Well right now I'm thinking of someone besides myself. A little boy who really needs a family." His voice was rising just slightly. He was beginning to get annoyed.

"Isn't the purpose of being a foster family to_ bring the child to live with you?_ Why are we _moving in with him_ instead?"

Her mother snapped in the front seat and leaned over the console to stare straight into her teenage daughter's eyes. Her slicked-back blonde hair was a bit disheveled from running her anxious fingers through it.

"I am on the damn phone. Shut up."

Sakura blinked and then snarled, but her mother had already returned to her phone call. She was on hold with the agency. And they were terribly lost.

Konohagakure was a small town. Why the hell were they lost? It wasn't like the big city they had moved from, which Sakura knew like the back of her hand.

Pissed off completely and no longer wanting to be annoyed by her parents, she turned her backs on them and looked out of the rear window. The moving truck was behind them and she glared at the driver. He frowned back at her and increased the distance between the two vehicles.

Her whole life had been packed into boxes. Toys, clothes, pictures, books, all of the belongings she had accumulated over her life. They were all behind her. Something heavy settled in her chest and she bit her lip. She wasn't going to cry. Just because she was on her period and her hormones were out of whack and her parents were being idiots didn't mean that she could lose her composure.

It wasn't that she cared about getting a foster brother. That wasn't what was bothering her. She'd met the little snot-nosed brat once before, back when he was in diapers. He was a curious sort but quick to cry. She didn't really mind getting a temporary little brother.

What she DID mind was having to uproot her whole life and plop it down in a stupid small town in the backwoods of society, and leaving her friends behind. They had no internet here. And they couldn't afford cell phones now-their new house cost even more for utilities than the rent they'd paid for their apartment in the city. There probably wasn't even a tower nearby anyway. They were at least three hours away from a mall.

And they had to draw water from a well. Can you believe it? All of those germs floating around in there? She would miss her chlorinated city water so much.

It was also so damn green here! She missed all of the shades of grey and black of the city. And the streetlights. They only had stop signs here. And most intersections didn't even have those.

Sakura was jolted by yet _another_ pothole in the road, bringing her back to the present. She clenched her jaws shut and counted to ten in her head, trying to calm herself down and almost failing.

"Yes! _Yes_, you can help me," Sakura's mother said exasperatedly into the phone, extremely sarcastic. "We cannot find the Sarutobi residence." There was a pause. She looked at her husband. "What streets are we at?"

He blinked and looked around, then shrugged. There were no street signs. Typical. Sakura saw a general store and leaned over the middle console, pointing it out without a word, knowing already that her mother would snap if she said anything in the dull voice she had wanted to use. Her mother said the store's name into the speaker-"Uchiha General Store"-and then she started rattling off directions to her husband and he quickly went about taking them.

When they stopped, Sakura recognized the house. They'd passed it twice before. They didn't realize it was the one because the house numbers had fallen off. She could see the hollows in the uncut grass where the metal numbers were now resting near the side of the house.

A woman in a tight black suit came out of the house. Her hair was long and straight and blonde and held back in two low ponytails. She was wearing a pair of red-framed half-moon glasses over dark brown eyes. Her chest was as distracting as it was ample.

"That took quite a while," she said in lieu of a greeting. Both Sakura and her mother bristled. This lady was rude. "Come in."

Sakura almost retaliated by staying in the car but knew it wouldn't do any good to throw a tantrum. So she opened the door and placed her worn sneakers onto the pavement. Unlike the broken streets back home, there was grass growing between the cracks here. The green was relentless, trying to swallow up the asphalt. Like a scab thickening over a deep wound.

She grabbed her bag-it was not a purse-and followed her parents up the equally-cracked sidewalk and through a mass of gnats. She covered her face and almost squealed in disgust and ran through them. What the hell? She wiped two off of her tongue and shuddered. Then she slapped at her arm and noticed the stain of blood on the skin and the squished mosquito. What the _hell?_

She slammed the door shut behind them, shuddering again. So many damn bugs. Why were there so many bugs? Why was it so green? Screw this, she wanted to go back to their measly little apartment. Now.

It didn't matter that the house was large and grand and hundreds of years old. With a spiral staircase beyond the foyer to upstairs. And threadbare but elaborate rugs on the hardwood floor. And she could see a library around the corner, the doors wide open, with tomes of various colors inside. And a chandelier, albeit covered in cobwebs, hovered above them. And sconces on the walls held unlit candles, the dull gold wearing years of wax drippings like so many stalactites. And the wooden walls were tattooed with little carvings of various things, like horses and wolves and rams and bears.

Huh.

Okay, so she was a _little_ intrigued about the new house. But she still didn't want to be here. She missed the doorframe of her bedroom where she had notched her growth up until her birthday of that year. There was no way to replace that here.

"In here," said the suited lady and then went down the hallway to the left, past a few closed rooms, and through a set of saloon doors into what was obviously a slightly-remodeled kitchen. It was rather big and was concrete. An old wood stove sat in the corner, black as night, the chute going through the ceiling.

At the wooden table sat her new foster brother.

He had grown a lot since she last saw him, which wasn't a surprise as it had been about nine years. He was perched on a stool with his elbows on the table, staring at them out of the corner of his eyes. His hair was dark and messy, and his eyes full of annoyance. He was wearing a pair of mesh basketball shorts and a jersey, as well as a long scarf wrapped around his neck and draping down his back to touch the floor. The thing must have been ten feet long if it had been straightened out.

"Konohamaru," said Mr Haruno, and went over to the boy. He held out his hand, which the boy stared at. He made no motion to shake it.

"You probably don't remember me-" her father started to say but was interrupted.

"Naturally, since I was a year old when we supposedly met," the boy said, his voice high-pitched. He was missing one of his incisors.

Sakura almost laughed but stopped herself. Konohamaru shifted his glance to her. "Don't even think of talking down to me, _sister_," he said sarcastically.

Her eyes widened slightly before they narrowed dangerously. Oh, he was so walking on thin ice right now. What had she done to warrant such a reaction?

"Now, now," Mrs Haruno said, trying to contain the situation. "We're all a little tired, I'm sure. Let's just get all of the boxes inside and then we can all take a nap."

Konohamaru slid off of the stool and turned his back to them. "Naps are for children and old geezers. Later." This last word was accompanied with a wave.

Sakura took three long strides and grabbed his scarf. It tightened around his throat and he made a strangled noise as he stumbled backwards.

"Look here, you little twat. You talk to me like that again and you're going to be hanging by this stupid piece of moth-eaten fabric from the chandelier in the foyer."

He whipped around, pulling the scarf away from his throat, glaring dangerously. "I beg your pardon?" he hissed through his teeth and the gap where the incisor was missing. "Do you even know who you're talking to?"

She grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him up. He looked a bit afraid now, underestimating her strength because of her gender. She raised her other fist, eyes like flashing emeralds, when her mother barked out, "Sakura, stop it!"

Sakura paused. Konohamaru's scared look was replaced by a cunning grin.

He thought he had won.

Yeah right.

Her fist connected with his cheek and his head whipped to the side. Her parents looked on in disbelief. The woman in the suit just shook her head.

He blinked, the pain not registering yet. She let go of his shirt and he collapsed on his knees on the concrete floor. His hand unconsciously came up and touched his jaw. The inside of his mouth had split and he felt blood pool on his tongue. He spat it out on the floor and stared up at Sakura in shock.

Sakura shook out her fist, knuckles stinging, before she pushed her bag back up on her shoulder and left out the back door. The screen door slammed shut behind her.

"Sakura!" she heard her mother yell, but she increased her pace in response. Faster and faster until she was running through the field in the backyard, over an acre of tall grasses, and over a rotten wood fence and into the woods.

She didn't realize she was crying until her vision blurred so much she had to stop running. She sat down on a fallen tree and sobbed loudly.

What the hell? They'd left every comfort they knew to come here to take care of him in the place he was most comfortable in and he badmouthed them first thing? What the hell was wrong with this kid?

She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. A mosquito bit her thigh but she barely registered the sharp sting. The heavy thing in her chest gained more weight as the sun started to go down.

The sky was a bloody red when she finally looked up. She angrily wiped her eyes, which were stinging. Crying wasn't a habit for her and her tears were so incredibly salty they hurt, which had made her cry more.

Sakura almost had a panic attack thinking she was lost but she could still see the fence from where she was sitting. Even in anger she wasn't stupid enough to get that far into the woods. She stood and brushed flakes of decaying bark from her black-and-red camouflaged cargo pants.

Even in the sunset the temptation of following the fence to see where it would lead was too much so she pulled out her iPod (first generation, can you believe it? and it was a used item when she bought it, too) and stuck her noise-cancelling Bose headphones on (these, however, were brand new and the latest; all of her allowance from the past three years went into these babies). She slipped her giant iPod into one of her pants pockets and started to walk as a haunting melody began playing in her ears.

Her hike made a trail in the grass as the tall blades were brushed aside and stepped on, creating a mushy dark green wetness under her feet. The ground was spongy underfoot. It was strange but she found she liked it after a few more minutes of musing.

Despite the humidity it was a bit chilly out so she took out her hairclip and let her long rosewater hair fall down her back in frizzy waves. Her watch told her it was about seven o'clock. Why hadn't anyone tried to find her yet? She was sure her trek through the field had left a trail much like the one she was leaving now. She scowled and pushed the thought from her mind, concentrating on the music.

Maybe a mile down the fence-geez, this thing was long!-she stopped to lean over and pick a few burrs from her socks which had somehow made their way under her pant legs.

Her headphones, which were blasting music, suddenly let out an electronic fizzle and skipping noise and she shrieked in alarm, almost falling forwards. She hastily pulled them away from her ears.

There was a rustle behind her, muted in her music-worn ears, and she whipped around.

A reddish brown shape hopped from her trail and up onto the top of the fence, then sat down, graceful and balanced. It rubbed its face with one dark-tipped paw and then looked her straight in the eye.

It was a fox. With blue eyes.

"Hi," she said. It just stared at her. Her heart rate slowed back down to normal as she watched it. It made no move to run even as she stepped closer. It lifted a back leg and scratched at an ear, eyes closed and fangs bared in pleasure.

She was appraising its pelt. Such black paws and white throat. And fur the color of the sunset as it was an hour or so ago-

And she gasped. There was a bright flash as the sun disappeared over the horizon, leaving a stain of darker reds that bled into purple and then into dark blue.

"Shit, I need to get back."

She contemplated hopping the fence and going at an angle back at the house but she wasn't sure how much further she had traveled along the fence, so she sped past the fox and back through her trail beside the wood structure. It wasn't hard to find her way back since she had left a trail, although the grass had slowly tried to whip back into its normal standing position.

When she found the part of the fence where she'd started after she'd been sitting on the log, she groaned. She'd sat there for so long that the trail she'd left in the field was absolutely gone. She couldn't remember if she had gone straight or at an angle to come here. How far had she gone in her rage? She'd crossed that hillock earlier but from which direction?

Since it was taller than the rest of the land, she hopped the fence and made her way towards it and then up the steep incline. When she reached the top she looked around. She could see quite a few houses from here. Not knowing how her new house looked from the air, she picked a random house and went for it. If it was wrong, the people living there could give her directions.

Halfway across the field she screeched in alarm as a dark shape whooshed through the grass before her feet. She heard it circle her and then come back around.

The fox again. She knew it was the same fox because she'd never ever heard of one having blue eyes before. The irises weren't even slit, she noticed. They were oddly human-like...

"Shoo," she said, moving her foot towards it in a way that she wasn't trying to kick it but fast enough to be threatening.

It jumped and barked at her, then raced off in the direction she was traveling.

Flippin'... What was that? Did they tame foxes here? Was it someone's pet? It was being awfully familiar with a human.

She shrugged her bag back up onto her shoulder and followed it, although it was already lost in the grasses again. She unpaused her iPod and slipped her headphones back around her neck but not up on her ears.

That same mechanical skipping noise happened, like a shudder of sound and she quickly stopped the song. Great. Either her iPod was broken or her headphones were. As if her day couldn't get any worse.

A half hour later and in almost complete darkness beneath the new-moon sky (using the meagre light of the paused iPod as a flashlight), she made it to the end of the field and into someone's freshly-mown backyard. It still smelled crisp and dewy as she shuffled through the discarded piles of mowed grass-blades.

Everyone's backyards were so big here, she mused, traversing an acre to finally get to the street. She knew it wasn't her new house even in the dark and the dim lamplight near the door but she went up to knock on it anyway.

The sudden muffled barking of an extremely large dog startled her so much she retreated a few steps down. There was the sound of several locks being undone and the door cracked open a bit. A black nose on a white snout at about her chest level stuck its way out. Even with just the muzzle there, Sakura could tell the dog's skull was humongous. She could only imagine the rest of the body.

"Back, back," said a boy's voice that seemed about her age. "Akamaru, back."

He peeked through the crack and noticed a strange girl standing there he'd never seen before. She seemed a bit alarmed. He wriggled his way out and shut the door to keep the dog inside.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," she echoed.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, appraising. The boy was taller than her by a good head. He was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a wornout black hoodie. His hair was short and wild. Two red fang-like shapes were on his face, one descending from each cheekbone until the tip reached his bottom jaw.

She couldn't tell if he was a part of a cult or not. He seemed nice enough. Except he was staring at her.

"You must be one of the people moving into the Sarutobi place," he said, breaking the silence.

She waved a mosquito away absently. "Yes. I'm lost."

"We're not used to new people moving in," he said helpfully (not) but he made his way down the steps.

She made to follow him but he suddenly stopped at the end of the driveway and simply emptied his mailbox. He made his way back past her, shuffling through the envelopes, muttering something about his great-aunt. When his hand touched the doorknob, she snapped.

"Can you please tell me how to get back to my house?"

He paused. Then he threw a fanged grin over his shoulder. "So that was your intention in the first place, eh? Can never tell with girls." He turned back around and rattled off some directions to which she quickly memorized with a frown before giving him a half-hearted "thanks" and leaving him with his mail.

He was a jerk. Wasn't he? She couldn't tell anymore. She was tired. Since there was only one school here, she was bound to run into him again, so she'd kick him in the balls then. For now, to get back home. Her stomach grumbled annoyingly.

After two right turns and a left and crossing an intersection, she passed the Uchiha General Store from before (it was closed now, naturally) and remembered how to get back to the house from there.

She'd made the final turn onto their long street when she noticed a dark shape moving forward. She froze in the night as it made its way towards her. It was human.

Her body tensed and she readied herself into a fighting stance.

"Oh. So you made your way back." That grating high-pitched voice from before.

"Sorry to disappoint you," she ground back, loosening the tightness in her body. It was just the brat. Konohamaru.

He said nothing as she breezed past him. He followed after her.

Fifty feet from their drive, he said, "Hey."

"What?" she asked, none too gently.

When he said nothing, she turned to face him. He was standing there, rubbing his neck with his hand beneath the scarf. The bright porchlight hit his face and even in the dim light she could see the bruise forming on his cheek. The heavy thing in her chest grew even heavier.

But she wasn't going to apologize. Yet.

"You're the first one to ever hit me," he said, voice flat.

"About time someone did, don't you think?" she scoffed.

He scowled at her. "My family used to own this whole town, before grandpa died. No one talked down to me. No one touched me."

"No wonder you're a brat."

"Shut-" He stopped himself and sucked in a breath, not completing his response. "Nevermind." He left her there and went up the walk to the door and opened it, light flooding out.

"Sakura!?" asked a voice.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Konohamaru echoed Sakura's words from before, voice dull. But Sakura watched her mother swoop down and embrace him.

There was shock on his face. Shock which melted into wonder. He bit his lip and his brows furrowed. She knew that face. She made it herself in the mirror. The face someone made when they were trying not to cry.

"You stupid boy! Don't you ever leave the house at night again! There could be-be axe murderers and rapists and who knows what else! Werewolves! Rabid sheep! Kangaroos with boxing gloves!"

Sakura couldn't help it. She snorted loudly. Her mother was annoying but she couldn't stay mad at her for long.

"I know everyone here. No one would hurt me," Konohamaru said, scowling.

"And if there was an escaped convict crossing the mountains to come here and start a killing spree? What then? I doubt they would know who you are, young man."

Sakura made her way up the steps and into the foyer and cleared her throat.

Mebuki looked up and noticed her daughter standing there. They stared at each other and Sakura was suddenly nervous.

Then her mother ran over, dragging Konohamaru with her, and strangled her with a hug.

"You stupid girl! I repeat the same admonitions onto you!"

The golden-haired woman was crying. Her hair was even messier than before. Kizashi came over and also wrapped his arms around them.

Sakura let her tense body relax into the embrace and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, mom, dad," she whispered.

Eventually they broke apart and Sakura absently rubbed at her eyes. Then she noticed the woman in a suit standing there with her arms crossed under her ample bosom.

As if remembering she was there, Mebuki frowned at her daughter. "Do you realize we could have lost him because of your actions?"

Sakura blinked. Oh. The punch. She suddenly looked uncomfortable. The bruise on his face was definitely noticeable now.

The woman waved the topic away. "Now that you're all here, I can go home." When she passed them she placed a hand on Konohamaru's head and ruffled his hair. "Take care of yourself, monkey brat."

She paused in the doorway. "Oh. Young lady, will you walk me to my car?"

Sakura didn't know what to expect but she nodded and went with her to her expensive-looking vehicle. It had mud on the tires now and on the undercarriage. Quite a few bugs had kamikaze'd their way across the silver hood. The woman opened the passenger door and rummaged around in her bag before pulling out a card and offering it to Sakura.

She took it and read it in the scant light. _Hashirama Tsunade_. The last name sounded awfully familiar.

"If you have trouble with the brat, call me. I've wanted to smack him for awhile now but it would've been highly frowned upon." She smiled down at the girl in front of her. Sakura gave a tentative smile back. "That kid's been through a lot," Tsunade said, the smile leaving. "His parents and uncle died in a car accident five years ago, the kid being the only survivor of the ordeal. After getting out of the hospital, he started to live with his grandfather, who just recently passed away. He has no other living family." She paused. "I'm not asking you to treat him like fine china, but I know he needs a friend."

"That depends on his attitude," Sakura muttered. She'd been touched by the story, just a bit, but the words came out before she could even think them. She covered her mouth.

But Tsunade just grinned. "You speak your mind a lot. I think he needs that, too." She held out a hand. "It's a pleasure doing business with you," she said, like she had just handed over a human slave. Sakura returned the smile and shook her hand. "Go inside before the mosquitoes leave a very pretty albeit bloodless corpse on the front lawn."


	2. a shadow

**Spell 002:** _the shadow_

Moving in had been a chore. It wasn't that they had a lot of stuff in the first place-it was easy to sort and put away. The house already had its own furniture, so Sakura claimed their old couch for her spacious bedroom. All of her clothes were stuffed away in the bureau and the wardrobe. The old stuffy covers on the bed were replaced with her more familiar red-and-white ones with their smattering of pink cherry blossom motifs, the bedclothes she'd had since middle school.

No, it wasn't the unpacking that had been an ordeal.

It was the cleaning up of the house.

Konohamaru had lived with his grandfather here for five years before the old man died, just the two of them. He had been too old to work around the house and Konohamaru could have cared less, so it had slowly fallen into a state of disrepair.

The lawn had to be cut. After Konohamaru was hit in the back of the head with a ricocheting pinecone, everyone wore hardhats and goggles to protect themselves. All of the yard tools in the shed out back had seen better days, although the sit-upon lawnmower was in pretty good shape.

Kizashi went about mowing the spacious lawns whilst Mebuki weeded around the bushes out front and the garden. Sakura started to do odd jobs after her mother threatened to starve her, like fishing out the house numbers and nailing them back up and shoving the mailbox into a proper standing position. Konohamaru (after also being mysteriously persuaded by her father) was up on the roof cleaning out the gutters which had accumulated years of silt in them and were actually growing their own little saplings. He did this barefoot and with his feet, kicking clumps of compost over the side of the house to either land on Sakura or Mebuki.

Summer was coming to an end and schooldays loomed closer as they went about sorting the house. Once the outside was as spick and span as they could get without having to pay for any repairs, they went to fixing up the inside.

What's that? Didn't her parents work? Well, of course they did. Kizashi made things. Strange things. Finding all sorts of things in the tall grass outside-pieces of metal that seemed to belong to nothing, bottles, cans, branches and twigs, someone's old baseball-he took them into his new workshop (a.k.a. the shed) and started to make things. That was his specialty.

He didn't wear the pants of the family. Mebuki did. She was an author of mild acclaim and they were somehow able to pay all of the bills with her earnings. She wrote horror stories. And the new house and neighborhood poked at her muse like no tomorrow.

Especially when she found a bunch of old newspaper clippings in old man Sarutobi's bedroom, which was now the master bedroom and thus her and her husband's new domain. Clippings featuring century-old haunting tales of the very town they lived in.

Sakura was curious about the stories too but was much too busy alternating cleaning (which she found she actually liked) and exploring the house. Konohamaru stayed inside of his room, which was fine with her.

They'd been ignoring each other as much as possible, only sending a few insults back and forth (especially when clumps of the gutter-dirt fell on her head). Dinnertime was quiet, like it had been before, just with an extra head at the table.

They did, however, agree on one thing. The candlewax stalactites were there to stay, at least until after Halloween, which was two months away. So Mebuki shrugged and left them there. They even lit more candles and let them get longer. The cobwebs stayed on the chandelier in the hallway but the rest of the house was spider-free.

Most of the floors were hardwood (with the exception of the concrete kitchen) so they didn't have to worry about carpet. There were, however, the rugs in the foyer as well as long ones down the middle of the hallways. These were hung up on clotheslines outside and beat with rugbeaters, which took a whole day to do as there was so much dirt and dust in them.

Besides dusting off the rest of the house, there wasn't much left to do. Nothing had accumulated except dust. And mail, which Konohamaru and Sakura were stuck sorting. They burned the junk mail in the fireplace of the expansive living room (or was it a reception room, once upon a time?) and solemnly roasted marshmallows together, not willing to enjoy any time they had alone together, but the allure of golden-brown treats was too tempting to ignore.

The last week of September found them two envelopes, one addressed to Haruno Sakura and another addressed to Sarutobi Konohamaru. They were the letters sent out from the school to remind them that it would start on August 6th of the following week and each one held their respective list of needed school items for each class.

Sakura held the letter to her chest in her bedroom, eyes closed. Junior year of high school. It wouldn't even be like freshman year, where she'd known at least a few people from middle school. This was like starting high school all over again, with absolutely new faces surrounding her.

She didn't make friends easy. She'd only had a few back home. One of them had been more of a rival than anything else after they'd both started going through puberty.

There was also only one school here, which she'd known about. Every grade was taught there, kindergarten up until senior year of high school. The younger classes were even combined into one class if there were only a few children at one point in time. Middle school was all one grade. Freshman and sophomores were also one class. Juniors had their own class, as well as seniors, no matter how few in number.

She sat down on her bed and fell backwards onto the covers, staring at the wood ceiling. She absently pulled her iPod out from under her pillow and slipped her headphones on, letting a soundtrack play in her ears.

Sakura had been apprehensive about playing her iPod once she had gotten home the first day. But it played fine, no more skipping, and she wondered what had caused the disturbance before. Maybe the iPod's age was catching up to it.

She had lightly dozed off when she was alarmingly shaken awake by her mother who was going into town for some groceries. Sakura consented on going with her in exchange for being able to pick up some chocolate, too.

Too late she noticed that Konohamaru was going with them. They ignored each other in the backseat of the car, Sakura helped along by her still-playing iPod. Her mother was used to her listening to her music and she often took the opportunity to incessantly chatter about everything and nothing. Unfortunately for Konohamaru, he didn't have something to plug his ears with, so he sat in annoyed silence.

The ride wasn't long and Mebuki parked the minivan in the gravel lot of the general store. Sakura hopped out and immediately went inside, not waiting for the other two, just leaving the words "I'll get the vegetables and fruit". She picked up a handbasket and went to the produce section.

The Uchiha General Store was moderately-sized and held quite a bit of stuff Sakura was previously sure backwoods people wouldn't carry. Like a certain brand of chocolate on the shelf in the back, which she took ten bars of. Then she sniffed her way through the fruits and picked out some honeycrisp apples and bright oranges. A stack of green bananas made its way to her basket as well. She then perused the vegetables and picked out some corn and peppers and bunches of green beans.

She wasn't much of a cook herself, but she could make stir fry. She was contemplating the onions when she felt someone watching her. Sakura turned and immediately pulled her headphones down from her ears. There was a dark-haired woman right beside her, patiently waiting for her to turn around.

"Are you finding everything alright, miss?" she asked kindly, wiping her hands on her store apron.

Sakura nodded.

The woman looked from her to the onions, as if knowing the girl was having trouble despite her nod. She picked one up. "The way to tell which one is the best is-"

She was interrupted by a crash an aisle away and they both flinched. The woman apologized and left Sakura there, turning the corner. Sakura, curious, followed her at a distance.

The rose-haired girl sighed when she noticed Konohamaru standing there, having a staring match with another apron-clad employee, who had his back to her. Black hair down to his shoulder blades was pulled back in a low ponytail.

"What happened?" the woman asked. When she noticed the child, she paused. Then she nudged the employee, who turned his head. "I'm terribly sorry, young master. Has my son inconvenienced you in anyway?"

Konohamaru's eyes hardened even more as he looked at the lady. He was about to open his mouth to speak when Sakura cut in. "There you are, you little brat. What are you doing, knocking things over?"

Sakura grabbed his arm and dragged him away from the two employees. She missed the woman's incredulous look. The male employee watched them go, a slight curiosity in his dark eyes.

"I didn't knock anything over, he ran into me!" Konohamaru said indignantly, trying to pull away.

"He probably couldn't see you over those crates. You're a shrimp."

The boy was spluttering something incoherent when they reached Mebuki, who was bargaining with another dark-haired male employee over a large bag of rice. Sakura sighed. "Mom, just pay the man what he's asking for."

Mebuki frowned but eventually nodded. The middle-aged man measured out how much she wanted and slapped a sticker on the bag to show the weight. They made their way to the register and another dark-haired employee was standing there, face seemingly emotionless with a hint of boredom. His hair was spiked with gel in the back and his eyes were almost black in hue. Sakura stared at him, curious. All of the employees had looked like each other, at least with their hair and skin colors. Perhaps Uchiha was a family name and this place was family-owned. She hadn't been there before today, not inside anyway.

Their eyes met. Jade green and jet black. The gaze held for a few seconds before Mebuki cleared her throat. Sakura shook herself and trailed after her mother, but not before glancing back at the boy, who had now pulled out a book and was reading it.

He looked her age. Maybe they would be in the same class. They'd go to the same school, either way. Whilst the other boy with the dog had been strange and she didn't really want to associate with him, this one had seemed indifferent. Perhaps she could make a friend?

Yeah, right, as if she could be friends with such a mysterious beauty of a boy. She was too busy thinking about him, about how his hair had blue lowlights and his face still rounded by youth, that she didn't realize they'd gotten back to the house-she didn't call it home, not yet-and her mother got out and closed her car door, snapping Sakura out of her musing. She got out and helped carry the food into the kitchen, but went immediately back up to her room, closing the door and slipping her headphones on once again.

Unfortunately the week passed by quickly for Sakura. Konohamaru was happy for this. He hated being stuck in the house with his new family, which were practically strangers to him. He didn't have many friends, but at least at school he was able to get out of the house for more than an hour or two-without his new guardians' supervision.

There were no buses for the school. One either walked or rode a bike, or the brave ones that used skateboards or rollerskates to skirt around the potholes in the half-paved roads.

As Sakura trudged along beside Konohamaru, who was ignoring her, she hefted her bag up on her shoulder and observed other people walking along the roads winding their way to the school. As they got closer to the school, Konohamaru's pace got faster until he was no longer seen to be walking with her at his distance. She watched him meet up with two kids at the entrance and then they disappeared behind the brick wall into the courtyard.

She paused in the middle of the road, sucking in a slow, deep breath. A crisp breeze shifted through her long hair, a cool hand on her cheek as she closed her eyes.

Then she opened them and walked forward past the wrought-iron gates.

They were early, school didn't start for another twenty minutes, but the courtyard was already crowded with people mingling with their friends. Unlike her other school, they had no uniforms, so people dressed how they liked. She'd expected to see quite a bit of T&A, or pants so low that boxers would show, but everyone was more or less decent. And, unlike her other school, which had students from all corners of the large city, this school's students were all neighbors with each other. Sure, there was some meeting up and talking about their summers if they happened to have gone away from the town, but it was mostly casual talk about the day-there was no *need* to catch up. They had all spent their summer more or less together.

She had no such one to talk to, except Konohamaru, and even if she could have found him in the crowd, she wouldn't have approached him regardless.

So she manuevered her way through and up to the doors, which thankfully were unlocked. She sidled in and was confronted with the front office right then and there, two hallways branching off to either side of the counter. A young lady sat at the desk, concentrating on something in front of her. When Sakura moved closer, she noticed it was a huge tome with tiny print.

Her hair was a startlingly vibrant purple-blue, and when her eyes flicked up to look at Sakura, they were seen to be amber. She solemnly marked her place in the book with an index card covered in scribbled notes and then slid it to the side.

"Good morning," she said politely, her face still solemn. "You're a new face," she said, before Sakura could reply. "You must be Sarutobi-kun's new sister."

"I am. My name is Haruno Sakura."

The young lady gave the briefest of smiles, too quick to tell if it was genuine or not. She broke the gaze and shuffled around some papers on her desk, filling up a manila folder with a few of the sheets. When finished, she handed the folder to Sakura.

"Here's a list of your classes in order of the time, and also the school rules and regulations. We don't have a dress code, but you've noticed already how generally well-dressed the students are here. There's a map as well, but you won't be needing it much. I've heard city schools have to change classrooms, is that right?"

Sakura, who had been looking at the map, glanced at the lady again. "The teachers do, when the bell rings. Students stay in the same classroom unless you have Home Ec, or P.E., or afterschool clubs."

The lady hmm'd, her hand unconsciously on her closed book. Sakura noticed this, but the lady did not. "You will have the same teacher all day, so please stay on his good side, otherwise you're screwed for the entire year."

Sakura's eyebrows disappeared into her bangs, but then she smiled. The lady smiled, too. "I'm Konan. If you have any questions, feel free to consult me."

The front doors suddenly burst open with a bang and Sakura jumped in alarm.

"Yo! Konan! Early as usual!" said a man in blue jeans and an alarmingly red-orange-yellow-white flowery Hawaiian-print shirt. His hair was pure white, thick and long, pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck, the strands stopping at about his knee. He had two thick red line tattoos starting at the far corners of his eyes and down to his jaw. His feet were unashamedly clad in dark brown sandals.

"Jiraiya-dono, on-time as usual," Konan greeted. To Sakura, she said, "This is the principal."

Just then the school bells rang. And they were actual bells, like cathedral bells, placed up in a tower above the main entrance. Students began to swarm inside and down their respective hallways. Sakura would have been lost in the deluge if she hadn't stepped closer to Konan's desk.

"Now, now, I know you guys are excited for the year and all, but please no pushing or shoving or I'll push and shove you into the dungeon!" Jiraiya called out with a smile, towering over most of them, even the seniors. Some of the students blanched at his comment and started to walk slower. Sakura was starting to doubt if the principal was kidding or not.

"Um, Konan-san, which classroom will be mine?"

"Oh? I thought I marked the map for you. Let me see."

Sakura handed her the paper and Konan picked up a blue highlighter and circled one of the rooms in the far back on the second floor. With the capped marker she showed Sakura to go down the right hallway, take a left, then go up the flight of stairs at the end, and the classroom would be on her left as soon as she got out of the stairwell.

"Oh, and we don't have those nifty things called 'lockers' that you have where you come from, but there's space under each desk to shove your bag. Do you need anything else? You have approximately five minutes to get to your class."

"Do we get our textbooks when we get to class?"

"You'll be assigned a textbook, and they stay in the classroom unless you need to take it home for you to study."

Sakura nodded and bid her goodbye and then joined the thinning crowd to go down the right hallway. The classrooms she passed held the middle school students. She made her way up the winding square stairwell and then to the second floor. She took a split second to steel herself before walking into her classroom.

It didn't work. She quickly averted her gaze from anyone looking at her and then made her way to the back to sit. She cursed her sudden shyness, but it was too late now. She was incredibly nervous and her palms were starting to sweat. Her heart raced in her ribcage.

"Hey, you're that new kid," said a male voice, and she hesitantly looked up.

It was that boy from before that had the large dog. Fortunately it wasn't with him today. He grinned at her, his unusually sharp canines catching her attention. The marks were still on his face, so she assumed they were in fact tattoos.

"So you're my age, huh? I figured you'd be younger. Ah, well."

"He goes for the young ones," said a voice beside her and she almost yelped. She hadn't noticed the other boy's presence until he spoke. He was bundled up in a light green hoodie, the hood up, and the collar pulled up around his face. He wore a pair of sunglasses perched on his nose.

"Just like a dog, looking for fresh meat," said another voice, and Sakura looked up to see the younger of the boys from the general store in front of her, his hair still spiked in the back with gel. His dark eyes looked between them all.

The dog-boy was torn between wanting to bristle and actually agreeing with the dark one.

A girl came up to them, her hair long and dark and a shade of black so pure it looked blue in the fluorescent lighting. Her eyes were a pale lavender-white, a haunting color. She was dressed modestly in a lavender-and-navy hoodie and lavender cargo pants.

"C-class is ab-bout to st-start," she stuttered. "P-perhaps we should s-sit down."

"C'mon, Hinata, you know we have Kakashi-sensei this year and he's always late for everything," said the dog-boy.

Hinata just closed her mouth and nodded shyly, her face red. She locked eyes with Sakura. "H-hi," she said.

"Hi," Sakura said back, blinking. Four people had already crowded around her. She was expecting to be ignored. But maybe the allure of a new face was too hard to ignore. She snapped out of her rut and gave the girl a smile. Now was her chance to make friends. Screw this up and she probably wouldn't have another chance. "I'm Haruno Sakura."

"Hyuuga Hinata," the long-haired girl said, smiling. She was absently twiddling her thumbs in front of her.

"Inuzuka Kiba," said the dog-boy, grinning. He was aptly-named, with those fangs of his. "The gloomy sunglasses-wearing bug-freak is Aburame Shino."

Shino's brows furrowed but he didn't say anything. Bug-freak?

The last one left, the beautiful boy, cocked his head to the side. "You're the Sarutobi brat's new sister?"

She blinked and nodded. Hinata had gasped at the boy's diminutive and Sakura looked at her, concerned.

"Uchiha Sasuke," he finally introduced himself. He closed his eyes and turned around, going to his seat near the front.

By then most of the students had arrived and the bell rang. Some of them sat down, others loitered near their friends' desks, chatting amiably.

The door opened and in walked a short red-haired boy. Sakura watched him in curiosity, mostly because his hair was so vibrant and messy and his skin so pale. Feeling a gaze on him, he locked eyes with her. His irises were a pale seafoam green. He turned towards her, his messy bangs shifting across the right side of his forehead, and she noticed something even more red underneath. But the hair fell back over his eye and he glared at her from across the room.

Kiba growled beside her and she broke the gaze. The dog-boy was staring at the redhead intensely, his fangs bared.

Shino shifted into the desk beside her and Sakura looked at him questioningly.

"You shouldn't associate with him," Kiba said before Shino could say anything, breaking his gaze with the redhead and turning to Sakura. "He's got a foul temper. His family moved here recently, too, and his siblings are just as awful."

Hinata tugged on Kiba's shirtsleeve and shook her head, brows furrowed. "Y-you don't know h-him, Kiba-kun, you sh-shouldn't judge."

Kiba shrugged and sat down in front of Sakura. Hinata took a place beside him and in front of Shino. She felt like she was shielded from everyone else by these three people, and it made her both comfortable and uneasy.

There was the sound of a chair creaking backward across the floor, and those of which had been looked at the blackboard suddenly grew quiet. One of the girls made an involuntary screech as a hand grasped the back edge of the teacher's desk, then the rest of the arm crooked up, and then a shoulder. Sakura, alerted by the screech, had looked up and her heart caught in her throat as a masked face loomed up from behind the desk, covered in long silvery white hair.

"Yo," said the person behind the desk, a male voice. "Class has started already?"

He stood up and adjusted his long-sleeved white polo, running a hand through the long silver fringe over his right eye. The lower half of his face was covered with a surgical mask.

"Kakashi-sensei, how long were you under there?" Kiba scowled. They'd all been caught talking to each other after the bell rang. He was wondering what type of punishment they'd get.

"Eh, hmm..." The man thought, walking out from behind the desk to lean against the front of it with his hips. "Since last school year ended, I believe..."

There was a nervous chuckle from one of the students in the front, but it got so incredibly quiet after that. A cricket chirped. Seriously.

Kakashi clapped his hands together. "Let's all start out the new year on the right foot, eh? I know I taught most of you brats around third grade, but I do see some new faces here and there. So we'll go down the rows and announce our names for the benefit of all. You first, please," he motioned to Sasuke, who boredly said his name.

They went down the row and when she heard Kiba introduce himself, Sakura knew she was next. So conditioned with the city school as she was, she actually stood up and said her name, then embarassedly sat down. There were a few whispers, but Shino interrupted them with his name, and then Hinata, and then the chain continued.

The redhead from before took awhile to respond, but he eventually introduced himself as Sabakuno Gaara. She stared at the back of his head unconsciously while others went about the row stating their names. Feeling her gaze on him again, he slowly turned and locked eyes with her. She sat up straighter and broke the gaze, staring at the obscure carvings on her wooden desk.

"Now that we're all acquainted," Kakashi said, clapping again, "You shall now get your textbooks. People in the front, please take one of the stacks on the windowsill and pass them along your row, please."

Sakura was startled to find an erotic fiction book placed on her desk. Icha Icha Paradise. She sat back so quickly in her seat that it almost fell over.

Kakashi, oblivious to everyone's looks, waved around his copy of the book (which was incredibly and possibly lovingly-worn). "This will serve as both a language textbook, a Sex Ed textbook, as well as both history and cultural textbooks." He stopped talking and flipped open his book. The cover almost came off. "Now, we shall begin with chapter one and go from there. Read quietly to yourselves for the time being. In thirty minutes we shall read it together and discuss."

The class was incredibly quiet as their teacher dove right in. Sakura tried to ignore the book, but the comical faces of the characters looking up at her... She hesitantly touched the front cover, picked it up an inch and then let it fall back down. She stopped and looked around her. A few of them had started reading, including Gaara and Sasuke. She locked eyes with Hinata, who shrugged and opened her book as well.

Well... it couldn't hurt, right? The teacher was condoning us to read it, right? It's a textbook... right?

She was reaching to pick up the book when Kakashi stood up straight suddenly and slammed his book on his desk. Mostly everyone jumped.

"How dare you read erotic books in my class!"

Sakura cringed, eyes shut, ready for another reprimand.

But it never came.

"I'm kidding," Kakashi said, his voice with a hint of laughter in it. "If you open your textbooks, please, you'll notice this isn't Icha Icha Paradise. Now, for chapter one, the beginning of the universe, shall we begin at the... beginning?" he asked jokingly, and then started to recite the book, moving to his chalk board to write down some important things they'd need to know later. "There should be an English dictionary beneath your desk if you're having trouble translating."

Sakura peeled away the fake cover to see that the real cover was titled "The History of Everything", written by anonymous. She let out a shaky sigh of relief before she started to read along.

This eccentric teacher of hers was going to be the death of her.

The day passed by slowly, however Sakura grudgingly admitted that Kakashi was an interesting teacher. He seemed utterly bored but always delved right into the spirit of the subject, seeming to not really care if someone was paying attention or not, but if someone broke down and admitted that they didn't understand, he would focus all of his attention on that person.

Lunch came by and Sakura pulled out her boxed lunch courtesy of her mother. Hinata had pulled her desk over to sit closer to her, much to Sakura's surprise. Kiba and Shino converged as well. They talked about everything and nothing, most of the time spent listening to Kiba blather on and on and just nodding in assent, although Shino would finally snap sometimes and correct Kiba's stupidity and complete confuse all of them with his scientific reasoning that such and such was either true or false.

Sakura leisurely looked around the room again, noticing Gaara had disappeared. Sasuke was sitting on the windowsill, looking outside. Two boys were sitting at a reasonable distance from him, also looking outside at the clouds passing by. She fished around in her mind and remembered the lazy-looking one with his hair pulled back in a high ponytail as Shikamaru and the long-haired, slightly-chubby, potato chip-munching boy as Chouji.

Kakashi sat at his desk, reading his (real) book, Icha Icha Paradise and grinning under his mask. The only way she could tell was because his lone visible eye crinkled every so often.

She wondered about his mask. Did he have allergies? She voiced this question to Hinata, who shook her head.

"I've n-never really thought about it," she whispered.

To which Kiba answered with a flourish that the teacher was a vampire and was hiding his fangs, and Shino reprimanded that vampires were unable to tolerate the sunlight and that the room was absolutely drenched in it. Besides, his reflection was showing in the windows, and he was eating garlic bread smothered in marinera sauce.

All too soon the bell rang again, signaling that lunch was over, and Gaara came back into the room with his usual blank face. The lectures began once more, this time math, and then later on it became sciences.

By the time three o'clock came around and school ended, she was exhausted. But Kakashi asked them all to stay for a few minutes more.

"Those of you who want to join the Halloween Committee, please go to the front office and sign up. They'll be starting on the preparations next Monday. You're dismissed now."

Sakura looked at her teacher, a bit puzzled. Hinata lingered there with her, the two boys going on ahead.

"You're starting to do stuff for Halloween now? It's August."

Hinata blinked. "That's unusual?"

"Very."

"Hmm," the dark-haired girl hmm'd, as they both walked out and down the stairwell.

"Are you going to join the committee?" Sakura asked. She was slightly intrigued about how much they actually planned for the occasion so far ahead, but she didn't want to join if she didn't have anyone to talk to. She'd attached herself to Hinata, and possibly Kiba and Shino as well.

"I a-always d-do, I h-help with c-costumes," Hinata said, face flushed. "I p-practice all y-year for it, ever since I s-started here."

Sakura let out a low whistle. "That's amazing. I wish I knew how to sew."

"I c-could teach you," Hinata offered brightly.

Sakura just gave her a hesitant smile. "My mom tried once. I almost lost a finger."

Hinata gasped and blinked. She then nervously said, "There are all s-sorts of other j-jobs for you, it doesn't have to be s-sewing."

So they both signed up on the list taped to Konan's desk and the lady smiled at them as they exited into the courtyard.

As they neared the large maple tree near the gate, a long-haired boy stood up from his leaning position and Hinata greeted him. A shorter girl was standing nearby. "Neji-nii-san. Hanabi." He simply inclined his head, his opalescent eyes flickering to look at Sakura, and Hinata turned to her and gave a shy wave before following after him and the shorter girl, who hadn't even acknowledge the pink-haired girl.

Sakura contemplated walking straight home and not looking for Konohamaru, but as she stood there thinking about it, the boy came out of the school entrance with his two friends. One was a cute girl with two gravity-defying orange pigtails, another was a slightly overweight boy who sneezed and wiped his nose with a tissue.

Konohamaru stopped when he saw her. His grin slowly changed to a look that was bordering annoyance. She looked at him the same way.

Wrestling the feeling back into the jar in her heart, she flicked her chin to the gates. "Shall we go home?"

He scowled and grudgingly followed her after saying goodbye to his friends, calling them by name-the girl, Moegi, the boy, Udon.

Five minutes in, she asked, trying to keep the relaxed feeling she'd had most of the day, "Did your teacher assign any homework?"

"No," he said gruffly, ending her attempts at a conversation.

She huffed mentally. At least she'd tried.

Five more minutes in and he paused in his walking. She looked back at him. "What's up?"

"I'm going to go a different way home," he said, and trotted back up the lane to another road.

She tsk'd, wondering if she should follow. Finally, hating her sense of duty, she traced her steps back and started down the path after him. They wound past some houses and then into a trail skirting the woods.

"Where's this lead?" she asked.

He didn't answer, just quickened his pace. She grumbled behind him but matched his pace as well. The woods fell away to show a clearing surrounded by wrought iron and white marble.

A cemetary.

He pulled up on the iron bar and it clicked out and then the gate swung open. He didn't bother to see if she would follow. She did, nonetheless. Was he going to go graverobbing? Desecrate a corpse? Graffiti a tombstone?

No. He found three modest yet elaborate gravestones situated near the center and then he kneeled in front of them.

"Hi, mom, dad, grandpa."

Suddenly feeling like she was intruding upon something very private, she turned her back to him and gave him some space. She trudged up a small hill and then blanched.

There were three people going through the open gate, and one of them had red hair.

She remembered Kiba's words, and also Hinata's, but fear took over her first. She stayed deathly still, hoping they wouldn't notice her.

Yeah, right, with that natural rosewater hair, she was cursed to be forever conspicuous.

They stopped ten feet from her, watching her as she watched them. Gaara's two companions were significantly taller than him. One was a boy with messy brown hair and dark purple Kabuki face-paint around his eyes and mouth, his body clad in a black t-shirt and black jeans. The other was a girl with four short blonde pigtails and bright teal eyes. She wore a purple empire-waistline shirt and black shorts, a pair of heeled black sandals strapped to her feet.

"What are we doing here again?" the brown-haired boy asked. He was regarding her carefully, but nonchalantly at the same time.

"Shut up, Kankuro," said the female, whose arms were crossed.

Gaara ignored his two companions and stared at Sakura. Seafoam clashed with jade. Her nerves were starting to get the best of her.

His position shifted ever so slightly and she felt a hot dart run through her entire being, making her gasp aloud. Her body was paralyzed, eyes wide.

The gaze broke as the three walked past her down the trail and deeper into the graveyard.

When his eyes left hers, she was able to move again. She whipped around but they were gone, and Konohamaru was behind her, looking at her strangely.

"What's up with you? Afraid of zombies?"

She swallowed thickly and shook her head at the barb, not rising to meet it. He cocked an eyebrow but said nothing more, just shrugged and left the cemetary. She swallowed, glancing behind her once more to see if she could spot the three, but they had completely disappeared.

What had that been? She'd never felt that way before, but from what she'd felt... it sounded like the description of a rabbit frozen in fear, mind-dead as a wolf devoured it. Or a mouse before a snake, so entirely enchanted by its paralyzing eyes that it could only accept its fate.

Whatever he was, bad or not, Gaara was someone to avoid.


End file.
